In recent years, researchers in psychology have made significant progress in the study of poverty psychology. It has been found that the poor class is suffering from not only material poverty, but also mental poverty which is mainly manifested in aspiration failure and behavior failure. The social cognitive theory of social class, which can explain the main mechanism of aspiration failure, argues that the poor have less resources and stronger dependence on the outside factors, thus forming a social cognitive tendency of contextualism, and tending to think that their own lives are mainly influenced by situational factors. Therefore, the long-term state of poverty may make them lose their motivation to get themselves out of poverty. Further, the scarcity theory, which can explain the key mechanism of behavior failure, argues that chronic poverty creates a scarcity mindset among the poor, which makes them more focus on issues related to scarce resources, resulting in the lack of cognitive resource. Consequently, when the poor have to perform other tasks, their cognitive and executive functions will be impeded by the lack of cognitive resources, resulting in more impulsive behaviors and difficulties in making rational economic decisions that may help them getting out of poverty. In relation to “Aspiration Failure” and “Behavior Failure”, the researchers have developed conditional cash transfer projects, “transfer and persistence” psychological intervention strategies, and social class mobility belief intervention strategies Among these intervention programs, conditional cash transfer programs have been widely researched. Conditional cash transfer programs not only have a significant effect on alleviating scarcity mindset of poor people, but also on improving their educational aspiration. This is mainly because it directly alleviates the economic pressure of poor families, and the additional conditions change the recipient's belief in education. When poor households receive cash assistance, parents and children are more likely to adjust their educational goals because of increased demand for human capital. Besides, the increase in income directly affects educational input and indirectly affects family education expectations and goals. In addition, the economic assistance obtained has alleviated the scarcity mindset of the poor, and reducing the pressure limit can release more psychological resources, which makes people think about future and long-term investment, such as children's education, which enables them to establish longer-term goals. That is, conditional cash transfer projects increase the educational ambition of the recipients by releasing psychological resources. Finally, future researches in this field are discussed. On one hand, future research should combine the social cognitive theory of social class and the scarcity theory, construct an integrated model of mental poverty (including both aspiration and decision-making behavior), and explore deeply the mechanism resulting in mental poverty. On the other hand, researchers should strengthen the indigenous research. In short, exploring poverty from the perspective of mental poverty can help us have a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of poverty, and help the poor enhancing their ability of self-development, and breaking the cycle of poverty.